We had a one-day ‘Spring Break’ on Monday and our Foreign Affairs office treated us to a trip to Lin’an Volcanic Rock Valley. All the foreign teachers and foreign students were invited from both campuses. There was the FAO staff and 5 English teachers, 1 Japanese teacher (who is my neighbor) 2 students from Holland, and 1 student from Japan. We left at 7:00am for a 3.5 hr bus ride traveling by some beautiful scenery, lots of construction and along some bumpy roads. We went thru tons of bamboo gardens where they were collecting bamboo shoots for my one of my favorite noodle bowls of bamboo shoots and mushrooms. There was a whole village that seemed to be dedicated to bamboo shoots. They were piled everywhere in trucks, bikes, backs, shops, and sidewalks.
After we got to the rock valley we ate lunch in one of the local establishments where they served us local fair. Predictably one dish was bamboo shoots marinated in some sort of a vinegar base, which was pretty good. Another dish had something that tasted like a cross between front lawn grass and parsley greens with tofu – it had a very strong taste but still could have used some vinegar pepper sauce. Surprisingly I liked it, but my favorite dish consisted of small purple sticks, which were about the size of a baby green bean. I have no idea what they were but it was spicy hot, crunchy and delicious. A nice frog dish which I skipped because I couldn’t get past the little web feet toe bones sticking out of the sauce. Another good ‘frog dish avoidance’ excuse is that my personal goal is to try 1 or 2 new things a day and I had already met the quota with the “greens and tofu” and the purple stick things. I did sample their fresh fish complete with the eyes (I didn’t eat the eyes -Nathan likes that part- yuck) and the beef dish.
We took the required group photo and began the long climb up the mountain. They stopped every so often to let us catch our breath and look at the rocks that looked like a certain shapes. (frogs, dogs, turtles, brains, etc) Besides the signs that described the represented animal they even painted eyes and lines on the rocks so you could clearly see the shape. Isn’t that cheating? The climb up rivaled the cave stairs. Many, many, many stairs. I did not get a count this time but it reminded me that I am still out of shape. There was a Chinese lady that was between 60 or 70 yrs old whose job it was to follow the tours up and down the mountain with a trash bag to collect our trash. She also helped validate my pitiful condition.
It took an hour and a half to get to the top and a half an hour to go down. The way down didn’t have as many note worthy sites, which was good because you had to watch your footing every second of the way. I heard lots of birds though. At the top even though we were all sweating profusely they gave us boiling hot tea. The Chinese can start drinking their tea right away but my mouth has not become lined with asbestos yet so Ricky and I cooled ours off by dipping the incredibly thin plastic cups in the mountain stream. Their green mountain tea was very earthy tasting but I think I liked it better than any tea I have had so far. I keep sampling different types of tea to discover the one worthy of stocking up and bringing home.
It seems that most of China’s attractions involve walking and climbing. I definitely got a real workout yesterday along with a little adrenalin excitement. Most of the walkways were narrow with no side rails to prevent careless people from falling. Some of bridges were made of metal rods with lots of space between them to see down. I just kept praying that none of them were rusted. The trip up and down will definitely qualify as one of my adventures. I have decided that you should not come to China if you have bad knees, any bad food allergies (cause you never know what you are eating) or any phobias such as acrophobia or claustrophobia. We got home at 7:00 pm tired and leg sore. I will definitely remember to look at the tour title next time and be forewarned if it has any word that HINTs at mountainous terrain.
Side note –It's a hot day today and the school is blasting Chinese versions of different songs over the campus speakers (they are in all the gardens). This one is “What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love”. The Chinese love the Carpenters! I have no idea how people are teaching/learning with their classroom windows open and the music blaring. I am glad I taught this morning. Weird, they stop some of the songs in the middle ….. Maybe I would understand the reasoning better if I could understand what the announcer is saying periodically.
Side note 2 - We had our first group Chinese Lesson. All the Glynn County teachers that had a hard time in my GIT class can now snicker behind my back because I am getting a major payback. I feel stupid and untrainable. I have no idea if I will make it thru the classes without crying. I won’t quit though!
